Craft Night Blog

Wednesday, 16 January 2013

For a while now, it’s seemed like tote bags are all the rage. Every time I walk around town I spy one with a quirky illustration or bold slogan. For something, at its essence, so simple, creating one of my own has always felt a little beyond my abilities. After all, not many people have screenprinting facilities at their disposal!

All is not lost however, as I’ve discovered a nifty little technique which achieves the same result, but with a fraction of the kit – and I’m about to share it with you all today. Let’s get started shall we?

You will need:

• A plain canvas tote bag

• Fabric paint in a contrasting colour to your bag (I’ve used a beige bag with black paint here, but a black bag with white paint would look fantastic!)

• A computer and a printer

• A scalpel and cutting mat

• An ironing board and iron

• A sponge or paint brush

And the secret ingredient?

• Freezer Paper – you can pick this up at large hobby stores (though our US friends can buy it easily with their groceries)

1. First off you need to pick your image. I’d advise choosing something that won’t be too complicate to cut out. I chose an ampersand (bit of an obsession of mine – I’m a bit of a typography geek!). If you, like me, choose a letter, don’t worry about any areas within your image you don’t want to print – this isn’t like stenciling, these can easily accommodated, fear not!

2. Once you have your image, measure your bag and print out a version that sits nicely within this size. For your average tote bag, something roughly A4 size is perfect. Make sure your image is a nice high contrast one, you’ll be tracing it later so you’ll need to be able to see it clearly.

3. Next, place your printed version on the cutting mat underneath an equally sized piece of freezer paper (with the waxed side facing down). Use your print out as a template to cut out your image from the freezer paper with the scalpel.

4. Right! That’s the fiddly bit over with. Now it’s time to position your freezer paper template where you want it on your bag. Then, with your iron on a non-steam setting, press the paper onto the fabric. You’ll notice that it’s sticking to your bag – go over all the edge to make sure there are no bits left unstuck. If there are any bits within your image that you want to block out (like the inner loops of my ampersand), you can iron them on separately now.

5. All stuck? Time to paint! It goes without saying that at this stage, you need to be pretty careful as any fabric paint that gets on your clothing is staying put! Take your sponge and dab on the paint evenly till all the areas within the template are covered. If you’re using a dark colour, I sometimes find it helpful to put a bit of card or wood in the bag to stop any excess paint bleeding through to the other side.

6. Now we play the waiting game. If you’re impatient like me, you can speed things up a little bit with a hairdryer though.

And it’s that easy! I created mine in less than an hour – near-instant craft satisfaction. Why not run up a batch as presents or personalise them with family member’s initials? The possibilities are endless!

Sunday, 13 January 2013

Hi all,A few short weeks ago I took the boy to Berlin for his birthday. It was a bit of a big one ('30') and I had spent a long time trying to figure out what might be his perfect holiday location with the following things I know and love about my boy: weird food, good beer, meat, Lego, action, zombies, comfy beds... you get the picture. Anywho, Berlin catered pretty well for all of these, and after a few flights to get there (sadly no longer flying direct from Newcastle!) we arrived and had an awesome 3 nights and 4 days there!Berlin is a fantastic city, and the week before Christmas it was cold but beautiful, lit up with lots of Christmassy lights and hot gluhwein! Not an alterior motive, just taking advantage of our time in Berlin, we did a little bit of crafty shopping. I say 'we', he very generously allowed me to go have a little wander around the local area looking for a wool shop I'd seen mentioned in a magazine. So, finally getting to the point of today's blog post, to help out anyone else who is looking for some crafting fun times on a trip to Berlin. This is by no means everything, just what we managed to find! We were staying at the fantastical Michelberger Hotel, on the East side of Berlin, near the East Side Gallery - very much recommended for all who enjoy a good ol' hipster hotel!These were my three favourite little places we found:

Fabric shop on Simon Dach Strasse, nearest Metro Warschauer St.

This was an awesome little shop - only very small but crammed with lovely patterned fabric of the kind I never see in craft shops near me, but am convinced would be incredibly popular! Lots of sweet animals and various different crazy images. There were also some lovely English speaking staff who had a long chat with me about how difficult it is to find good fabric containing images of dancing pink sparkly rabbits... Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area. The shop was fairly small so no inside photos, but scroll down to see some of the lovely fabric I got, especially love the polar bears!

This is the place I had read about and had gone to find when found the fabric shop, and many other fun things in between. It was pretty awesome, with a lovely range of wool in vibrant colours, which is what I always struggle to find. Very cool little shop, they also seem to run knitting classes, although being there such a short time and with a birthday boy, not really the order of the day. Bought some beautiful extra fine merino wool to make in to a very special gift for a very special friend. Not to be revealed for another 5 and a bit months...

Loved the tree!

Difficult to see here but there was a wool wrapped cord on the light, very hip.

3. Bead shop Tukadu, nearest Metro was Hackescher Markt.

We found this place while following a trip advisor walking tour of graffiti and public art starting in Hackesher Markt via the trip advisor app - it worked very well and we saw some things I'd never seen before, and took us to the best gallery we have been to in ages!

Anyway, the bead shop was all kinds of awesome, again the kind of place I would love to live round the corner from. Everything arranged by colour, lots of different kinds of beads, sizes and styles so we were more than a bit overwhelmed. I ended up buying some blue and gold beads, inspired by how they were layed out in the shop and looking fantastic. The only thing that was a bit lacking was chains to make your jewellery with, and the woman running the place wasn't that helpful, but I still had lots of fun!

My little haul, the only thing that I bought that hasn't yet been 'actioned', anad is sitting beside me now!

There you go, I've been fairly restrained with pictures, as we had many, many, many photos of the rest of the holiday, and so here are a sneaky two crafty related pictures before I say goodbye!

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Hi all,It's been a little while since my last post; Christmas, birthdays, holidays and weddings all crammed in to a short three week period! Anywho, I was just posting some images to my Mum about my upcoming wedding, and realised I hadn't put anything up on here about the blanket I made my Mum for Christmas.Last year, when just beginning to crochet I made a blanket for my sister. I'd told my Mum I'd started crocheting and she'd found it quite funny, quite 70's! But then she seemed to regret that when Claire got something not her! So this year, after several fairly big hints I started on this one.

Wool basket, full of wool!

This is my favourite blanket I've ever made, very sad to see it go - BUT I know it has gone to a good home and will be appreciated. Sadly no photos of it in it's new home, but I'll try update when I get some!

Ta da! All done, and below all packed ready to be wrapped :) One day, after this wedding business is all over i think I might make me one!

Sunday, 25 November 2012

Hi all! Below is a pattern I've just made for some Christmas Tree bunting, enjoy!Using green wool (this is dk and the crochet hook is 3.75mm)Round 1: Chain 3, 2 double crochet (DC) in to first chain, 3 chain, 3 DC, 3 chain, 3 DC, 3 chain and join to first DC.Round 2: Chain 5, *3DC in to next 3 chain space, 3 chain, 3DC in to same space, 2 chain*, repeat twice and join to initial chainRound 3: Chain 3, 2 DC in to next space, *2 chain, 3DC in to next space, 3 chain, 3DC in same space, 2 chain, 3DC in to next space* repeat twice and join to initial chainRound 4: Chain 5, *3 DC in to next space, 2 chain, 3DC in to next space, 2 chain, 3DC in to next space, 3 chain, 3DC in to same space, chain 2* repeat twice and finish off yarn, weave ends.See pictures for more detail!

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Make as many as you need! I made three as the hanging place wasn't that wide.

Add decoration, I added sparkly white wool (kinda like snow?!), and my partner said they needed baubles, but not till after they were hung and its too late now!

To hang as bunting either chain a long enough row of wool, or leave a length of wool, measure up your space and sew the trees on at the top point. I used pins to keep them in place when figuring out where they should go.

Thursday, 22 November 2012

Handmade Hand WarmersVery simple little gift that works as a stocking filler and doesn't take too long to make. A few friends and family got these as gifts and went down OK, my mum got the most use out of hers until they were eaten by mice that had got in to the house! So popular with mice...

Cut two long rectangles of fabric and sew up the two external sides. Fill with rice (and lavender if you're in to that kind of thing) and turn in the edge and sew over.

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Bunting is all over the place at the moment, and our house is no exception! I used up a load of Christmas left overs for these bad boys and am looking forward to them being put up on our bookcase this year - it was just being planned last year but is complete now!

I made double sided bunting to it will be more flexible, just cut lots of triangles, pin and sew along the edge

Red, green white.

They can go a bit wiggly, so give em a good iron

I used ribbon for the string, bit more luxurious than normal fabric and easy to use. To decide on spacings I pinned the ribbon to the wall and then pinned triangles to the ribbon, lots of measurements to make sure all was even!

Pretty!

Ta da! Not the best light in this photo, its always dark in winter, I may update this when it goes up again this year.